


in his arms

by kittymills



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, OC Galra, SHEITH - Freeform, canonverse, keith is intersex, okay maybe it's a little sad, s2 onwards, season 8 doesnt exist, vague pregnancy mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 09:21:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills
Summary: The real reason Keith left the team to spend time with the Blades.





	in his arms

**Author's Note:**

> This fic starts in S2 straight after Keith's Blade of Mamora trials and continues through to post s7 (S8 doesn't exist).
> 
> I am a bit nervous I've missed some tags on this so if you think I need to add any, please let me know.  
> This fic was born of a twitter au brain fart I had a few days ago.

Keith’s body is bruised but his heart has never felt so full.

He stares at Shiro. “You mean that?”

Shiro smiles at him, the same soft smile he always has for Keith. “Every word. It changes nothing. You’re still the same Keith you’ve always been. The same Keith that stole my car all those years ago.”

Keith snorts then shakes his head. He reaches up and pulls his hair away from the back of his neck, baring the skin there. “I guess I know what these are now. I thought they were birthmarks…”

Shiro trails a gentle finger along the different shade of Keith’s skin. “They look like tiger stripes.”

Shiro’s finger stops and pulls away. When he speaks again, his voice is so much lower, his breath warm on the back of Keith’s neck. “They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful, Keith. You will always be beautiful to me.”

* * *

Shiro doesn’t stay, as much as Keith tries to curl around his hips and make him. At least now he understands so much. He understands the quirks of his body, why he was just that little bit stronger, faster and angrier than the other kids. His father had always told him he was different, that his mother came from the stars and then returned to them, but Keith had thought he was just trying to fill his head with the romance.

A way to make Keith feel special, instead of just a freak.

He was different in other ways too. Ways he’d long thought of as a curse, until Shiro had laid him back on the sheets and explored Keith in a way he’d never even allowed himself to do.

And it had felt so good.

“Baby,” Shiro murmurs and Keith quivers with the soft endearment. It’s his now. Only his and Keith curls around it possessively. “The team-“

Keith sighs and loosens his limbs. They still have a war to win, an Empire to bring down. Shiro slips out of his grip but turns to press his mouth to Keith’s. It’s a branding kiss, a new beginning, a new acceptance.

They still have a war to win, but now they also have this.

* * *

They don’t win the war. They don’t even win the battle.

There are long hours of searching. Long hours of drifting through the rubble, searching for the remains of his heart. It’s bitterly unfair that they’ve come together to take down Zarkon only to be ripped apart. The team doesn’t understand his urgency. They don’t understand why Keith won’t give up.

Why he _can’t._

The longer he searches, the more the kernel flickers at the edges of his mind. The more he refuses to acknowledge the possibility. It’s too frightening a door to open, the path beyond it equal parts wondrous and just fucking terrifying. He isn’t ready to face what it might mean, for him, the team. For Voltron.

For Shiro.

And then they find him.

* * *

He’s different when they bring him onboard the castle ship, but Keith tries to tell himself that Shiro has endured so much on top of everything else he’s had to endure in his life that it’s to be accepted.

He pushes down his own needs. He doesn’t let himself be selfish.

But it hurts when later in the dim quiet of his room, he spans Shiro’s face in his hands, light stubble under his palms and his fingers tangled into long hair… and tries to kiss him.

Shiro flinches back, eyes wide with shock. His voice is rough with a week’s worth of decay in a listless ship. “Keith, what are you doing?”

And just like that, the doors inside Keith slam shut, the fragile hope crumbles as his walls rebuild. He drops his hands and stands back.

He folds his hands over his chest, over where his heart aches and aches and aches.

Whoever said it was better to have loved and lost was a liar.

“It’s good to have you back, Shiro.”

Shiro looks up at him through the long strands of his hair. He’s confused, tired and weak but anyone would be after what he’s just been through.

* * *

Kolivan lingers behind after the meeting on the castle ship. The others have all filed out, headed to the bridge or the hangar bays. Keith moves slower than them. He’s tired these days, a constant queasiness that leaves a sour taste at the back of his throat no matter what concoctions Coran and Hunk try to force on him.

Nothing has felt the same since the battle with Zarkon.

Keith forces himself to his feet and walks around the table to the door. Kolivan blocks his path, as huge and as imposing as ever. His nostrils flare and his stare is as hard as the gravel in his voice.

“Keith. Are you are with child?”

For a heartbeat, Keith doesn’t understand. He hears the words but they don’t make sense in his mind. The implications skirt too close to his own private suspicions he wasn’t prepared to face so he hides behind something else instead.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

It comes out like as an angry hiss and his fingers curl sharply but Kolivan barely reacts. If anything, the big galra’s edges seem to soften. A huge hand comes to rest against Keith’s tense shoulder and Kolivan’s voice lowers.

Keith tries to pull away but Kolivan won’t let him. “I can scent it on you.”

The jerks involuntarily, but its confirmation of something he hasn’t been willing to face. That night after the trials, before the battle with Zarkon, before Shiro had been stolen from him in all the ways Keith never wanted to lose. He remembers the way Shiro had explored his body, the parts that were different, the parts that were the same. The ache that demanded completion and Shiro as gentle and as hard as Keith needed, slid home and made Keith his.

It doesn’t make sense, even when it does.

He doesn’t realize he’s trembling until Kolivan grips his other shoulder too and a small part of Keith wants to sag weakly under the weight of his knowledge. God, Kolivan is huge, his entire presence blocking any view Keith has of the world around him. He forces Keith to meet his gaze.

When Keith finally looks up, he’s surprised at the expression Kolivan wears. There’s a wariness there, a tint of sadness. “There are ways…” he says lowly. “Ways to remedy this situation, should you wish it.”

It takes too long to comprehend the implication of Kolivan’s words. A long beat of silence then his eyes flare wide. His hands curl around himself protectively purely on instinct. Is he brave enough to give up the part of Shiro that’s only ever truly been his? Shiro who had been very frank with the understanding his failing body meant he wasn’t likely to ever be a father.

But was Keith brave enough to go through it, in a body he had long believed to be human and male, to experience these changes?

The chance to have Shiro and himself in his arms.

But what kind of life – fighting a war they weren’t sure they could win. They could die tomorrow and the child would be an orphan, like he was… could he really let the flesh of his own flesh live a life like that.

Until Kolivan offered to take it away, he hadn’t realized how desperately he wanted to keep it.

His eyes are stricken when he lifts them to Kolivan.

“I… I can’t do that,” he croaks. “I won’t.”

Kolivan’s eyes narrow. “You cannot pilot Voltron with a kit in your belly!”

“I don’t need to,” Keith says. There’s a crack in his heart. “The Black Lion belongs to Shiro.”

* * *

He hides behind the ruse of a mission, even as the spark inside him grows stronger. Sometimes at night, he swears he can feel the flutter under his fingertips even as he tells himself it’s too soon. He needs to leave the team before he starts to show. He’s already noticed the confused glances Lance turns on him when he pushes away his bowl at breakfast most mornings.

And Shiro… The Shiro that had brushed back the hair from his neck and kissed his skin with loving touches was different to the Shiro that had returned from Zarkon’s grasp. Keith refused to blame him for it, but it hurt in ways he couldn’t face to be so close to every desire he’s long harbored only to lose it.

The team is all there when Shiro grips his hand and pulls him into a hug, and although it’s different, Keith savors it just the same. Takes a beat to breathe Shiro in, lingers in his warmth. Smiles in spite of himself because although Shiro came back changed, he’s still the man Keith loves.

Then he turns and walks away from the father of his child.

* * *

He’s starting to show when Kolivan introduces him to a tall galra female by the name of Ilouk. She’s pregnant too, further along than Keith and soft in all the ways Keith liked to imagine his own mother would have been had he had the chance to know her. She isn’t much of a talker, something that Keith finds oddly reassuring in a strange way when he sits beside her in the glow of the stars.

“I will give your kit a loving home,” she says quietly as a streak of light shimmers in the distance. A patrol is returning, possibly carrying Ilouk’s mate onboard. “This I swear to you, Keith.”

Keith closes his eyes, the truth of it settling against his heart. It hurts to know he won’t see Shiro’s child grow, but Shiro never belonged to him.

It’s the law of the universe that this wouldn’t be any different.

* * *

When the time comes, Keith wakes in the middle of the night with the bone deep fear that it’s too soon. He rolls in the sheet, gasping as a pain grips his body only to find the doors to his quarters hissing open and strong hands scooping him up. They carry him to the medbay, even as he grits his teeth against the waves of pain and clutches Kolivan’s arm. His nails dig in but he knows Kolivan won’t feel it.

“It’s too early.” It’s only a sob and for the first time in his life, Keith chokes on the fear in his throat. He can’t lose this. The universe has already taken so much, he can’t lose this too.

Kolivan’s face looms over him as they lay him on the stark silver table. He doesn’t recognize the other blades in the room but he doesn’t need to. Kolivan is all he sees.

“We will do our best to save both of you,” Kolivan rumbles and then a wave of pain hits him so hard that white blooms behind his eyes.

And then black.

* * *

He comes to with a dry mouth and a dull body. He feels exhausted and… empty.

His hands shift under the sheets but swell of his belly is gone and tears prick unwillingly behind his eyes. A figure he hadn’t initially noticed moves closer.

It’s Ilouk, and in her arms she holds a small bundle over her own rounded stomach.

“Keith,” she whispers, the sound soft and sweet and warm. “She survived. The kit survived.”

He blinks blearily at the shape in her arms. “She?”

Ilouk smiles. “She appears to be a human female. She’s very beautiful, she even has your hair.”

Keith holds his breath, staring at the shape. He can’t see her face yet. Time seems to slow as Ilouk approaches, and then Ilouk pauses. She looks suddenly unsure.

“Would… would you like to hold her?”

Keith reaches for her without thinking. Without considering how much more it will hurt when he has to let her go. But he’s used to it now, the ache that comes with something he knows he can’t have, won’t ever have. He’d rather take this small moment and cherish it, than spend a life time wondering.

He savors in the weight of her in his arms and searches for Shiro in her tiny face.

* * *

His body heals quickly, far more quickly than Keith had expected. It almost feels like a betrayal. He had her for so little time it’s sometimes feels like she wasn’t part of him at all. It’s painfully easy to fall back into his training, to rejoin the fight and when Kolivan assigns him a mission, he pushes aside all thoughts of Shiro’s daughter and focuses on the task at hand, of the deep cover operative he’s been assigned to retrieve.

Keith starts to walk away, towards the fighter he knows is waiting for him in the hangar.

“Keith.”

He stops and glances back over his shoulder. Kolivan’s face is grave.

“I will ensure she stays safe.”

It’s as close to an acknowledgement as he will get. He thinks of his daughter – no, not his anymore, safely onboard the shuttle carrying Ilouk and her family, carrying her away from him. She’s safe now, she’s loved. And she’ll always have a family to cherish her.

Keith nods and runs towards the fighter.

* * *

There are times Keith wonders if his whole life is merely some kind of comic joke. He gives up the chance to be with his child, only to find his long lost mother instead.

The spacewhale becomes their home, the space wolf puppy his constant companion. He finds a tentative peace with Krolia. There’s too much resentment, bitterness inside him to let go too quickly even as a part of him wonders if his daughter will one day feel the same about him. Walking through his mother’s memories proves to be a balm that shows him the truth.

But it shows it to Krolia too.

She wakes him one night, her hand gripping his wrist, her eyes wide. “Is it true?”

Keith pulls himself up slowly. The puppy whines and presses its wet nose against his shoulder. He takes too long to answer and Krolia leans closer. _“You had a child?”_

He nods slowly. If the flashes had shown her, there was no point trying to hide it. And surely Krolia of all people, should understand the cost it took him to let her go. “Yes,” he answers. “I left her with the blades. Kolivan found her a family to… to raise her.”

Krolia surprises him by pulling him into her chest, her long limbs curling around him tightly. Her grip is almost crushing but Keith finds himself clinging back. She rocks him as they cry together and more flashes come, more memories that replay like movies behind their eyes.

And this time she walks through his.

* * *

The battle for Earth is a long, hard slog that the paladins almost don’t recover from. Keith finds himself more comfortable than he expected to be as the Black Lion’s pilot and the leader of Voltron, but a lot of that he knows has to do with the way Shiro had bonded with the IGAF Atlas. Keith feels less like he’s stolen something from Shiro, and more like they’ve all found their place.

The long months of rebuilding leaves them both so busy but Keith figures it’s probably better this way. Better to work so hard he has no choice than to fall asleep the moment his head hits the pillow rather than lie awake in the darkness, running his fingers over the faint surgical scar low along his belly where she’d been taken from him, wondering what she looks like now, what she sounds like.

Wondering if Shiro will hate him for robbing him of her.

The clone body is different to his human body, and so is Shiro. He’s as commanding as ever, as beautiful, but Keith can’t ignore the darkness that he knows he tries so hard to hide. He wants nothing more than to reach for him, to thread his hands through the newly minted silver of his hair, kiss his cheeks. Let them soothe away the lines that weary them both.

But he keeps a polite distance, ignores the way Shiro’s voice sometimes cracks ever so slightly when he says Keith’s name. Ignores the way the secret beats so hard against his ribs, desperate to be known.

It’s late one evening when Shiro stops him in the halls of the garrison. They’re alone in the grey, the lights already dulled to the night cycle.

“Keith, do you have a moment?”

Keith pauses. Forces everything down like he has a hundred times before. “Sure. What’s up?”

Shiro looks slightly unsure, and very much tired. “I… I was wondering if we could talk. In private?”

Keith glances down the corridor towards his quarters. It’s not that he doesn’t want to spend time with Shiro, it’s more that he doesn’t trust himself to be alone with him. They haven’t been truly alone for a long time. Long before the battle of Zarkon, long before the clone.

Shiro seems to senses his hesitation. “I know it’s late but…” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The sag of his shoulders strips away all of Keith’s resistance like butter melting under the hot desert sun. “I miss you.”

The lump in his throat makes it hard to answer. “I miss you too.”

Shiro looks relived. As though he wasn’t sure how his soft confession would be taken and Keith almost wants to laugh at the ludicrous idea that he wouldn’t do anything for this man if only he asked.

“So, uh. Do you want to come hang out for a bit in my quarters? I think the mess hall is already closed up for the night but I’ve got a great coffee machine that makes surprisingly good hot chocolate.”

“You have a coffee machine in your quarters?”

Shiro shrugs. “Perks of being a newly minted admiral I guess.”

He smiles, and it’s bright and warm. A small part of Keith sends the thought out that he hopes their daughter has that smile. His own answering smile fades.

“Okay, sure. I’m pretty tired though.”

Shiro nods, his own smile dimming slightly. “That’s fair. I won’t take up too much of your time.”

Shiro leads him down the hall towards his quarters. They walk in silence and Keith wonders if he’s really strong enough to endure this. He’d rather face down a hundred of Zarkon’s robeasts than be alone with Shiro with this secret humming wildly between them. A small part of Keith wonders when his strength will fail him.

Shiro pauses by the door to his quarters and motions to Keith to enter ahead of him. It’s such a solicitous gesture that it makes Keith snort and roll his eyes. He smiles in spite of himself when Shiro grins at him and for a moment, he thinks he might just be okay.

Shiro hands him a warm mug. They sit opposite each other in the living space of Shiro’s quarters. It’s nice in here, much nicer than Keith’s quarters he shares with Hunk.

He takes a sip as the silence stretches between them then Shiro leans forward and sighs.

“Keith,” he begins and Keith can hear the pain in his voice. “Is… is everything okay? Between us?”

“Yes? Why wouldn’t it be?”

Shiro lifts his gaze and stares hard at Keith’s cheek. Keith lifts a hand to the scar then frowns. “That wasn’t you.”

“It was. In a way.”

Keith shrugs. Shiro saw his scar as wound that went far deeper, Keith saw it as a victory he brought Shiro back. “Doesn’t change anything.”

Shiro stares at him for a moment longer, his expression unreadable. Keith puts down his mug. His stomach is churning too much to keep anything down. It’s exhausting holding so much inside him. He can feel it clawing at his throat, begging to be released.

Shiro makes a small noise of frustration and tugs at the collar of his uniform. A button pops, exposing the column of his throat. He shifts his gaze away, studies his hands. It’s still jarring to see the oversized white unit of his new prosthetic next to his human hand. Keith wonders if it bothers him.

“When… when I was in the astral plane, do you know what kept me sane?”

Keith keeps his voice soft. Gentle. “Patience yields focus?”

Shiro looks startled for a heartbeat then he shakes his head and laughs. The light from the lamp throws silver shades over his hair. He looks so different from when Keith first met him but he still looks the same in all the ways that matter. “You’re never going to let that one go, are you?”

Keith forces a cocky grin. “Nope.”

Shiro laughs again, softer this time. There’s a light in his eyes now, a warmth that hadn’t been there moments before. Something inside Keith beats happily with the knowledge he has the power to do that. To make Shiro smile.

It’s all he’s ever wanted.

“It was you,” Shiro says after a moment. His gaze is soft. Almost loving. “Thinking about you and…”

The warmth fades and Shiro glances away. It takes him a long moment to continue. “Did I read it wrong, Keith? Have things between us changed that much? We’ve been through so much –“

Keith frowns. He’s having trouble following, the panic is too loud. “What do you mean?”

“I love you, Keith. I will always love you. As a friend, a brother but… god, I love you so much more too. And I understand if this isn’t something you want anymore, I promise I won’t let it affect our friendship, we have to work together now but-“

Keith stares at him, his heart beating so hard he’s not sure how he’s even breathing.

“Keith, if your feelings have changed, I get it, I understand-“

Keith can’t hold himself in check anymore. He doesn’t want to but then he’s always been selfish when it comes to Shiro.

And Shiro… Shiro sits before him with his heart wide open, every dream Keith’s ever held close in his heart of hearts right there before him. He shoves the mug away and dives across the small distance between them, crashing into Shiro’s arms and hunting for his lips. This body feels different with the addition of the new tech but Shiro still kisses the same away he had that night, the same way he did in that secret moment before the final battle with Zarkon. It’s the same Shiro that loved him then still loves him now and Keith doesn’t bother to stop the tears that leak down his face.

This might be his only chance to have this.

Keith doesn’t lift his mouth from Shiro’s skin. To do so might allow the secret tucked inside his heart to fall out and he’s not ready for that. He’s not ready to lose this yet. He’s not sure if he will ever be.

The reality is better than his memories. Shiro kisses him back hungrily, years worth of pent up frustration leaving marks along Keith’s skin. He’ll relish those marks later, trace them with his hands and replay every moment. Shiro peels the uniforms from their bodies, dumping them on the floor in a pile of red and black and white before laying Keith back. Keith isn’t as lean as he once was, something Shiro seems to delight in exploring. He still manages to scoop Keith up and carry him the short distance to his bedroom though.

“I missed you so much,” Shiro murmurs amidst his kisses. There’s desperation to his tone that Keith echoes. It’s so easy to cling to him, to let out a sob against his neck as he tries not to think about the space between them and the secret that fills it.

“I missed you, too.”

Shiro kisses him again, once again stealing the breath from his lungs. His lips travel over each new scar, each bruise from battles long past, until he comes to the neat line of a surgical scar and Keith stiffens under him.

Shiro draws back. “Keith? This doesn’t look like a battle wound.”

Keith closes his eyes and curses himself for not pushing Shiro’s hand away. It still lingers against the scar. Shiro isn’t stupid. It’s position and his knowledge of Keith’s body makes it impossible to hide the truth.

So Keith doesn’t try. “It’s not.”

* * *

Keith tells Shiro everything. The pregnancy, the kit- their daughter. Somehow it’s easier to think of her in galra terms, so he doesn’t have to wonder if she’s lonely being the only human raised in a family of galra siblings. With all the odd time skips they’d endured, Keith guesses she would be about five earth years now. Krolia is searching for her, digging deep into what’s left of the blades in the hopes Ilouk and her family escaped Macidus’s carnage. Keith doesn’t allow himself to think otherwise.

Shiro cries silently and Keith braces himself for the recrimination he’s sure will come but Shiro pulls him close. “Keith, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to go through that all alone. I should… oh god, I’m sorry.”

Keith can feel the beat of Shiro’s heart against his cheek. Something he’s never dared to let himself hope for blooms quietly between the pauses. “You’re… you’re not angry?”

Shiro smoothes his human hand over Keith’s hair and cradles his head. He tilts Keith’s face upwards and presses a long, gentle kiss to his lips before drawing back. His cheeks are stained with silver tears. “How could I be? God, Keith-“

Shiro cuts himself off, squeezing his eyes closed and touching their foreheads together. His voice is a little rough. “When this is all over… maybe we can bring our girl home.”

Keith curls an arm around Shiro’s neck, his heart lighter than it has been in a long time.

“Maybe,” he whispers back.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like it would be too cruel to Ilouk to take a child she’s raised as her own away from her so I’m not sure where I would go from here. Maybe Keith and Shiro have more children and leave their first born with Ilouk, or maybe when their daughter is much older they let her decide for herself if she would like to know them... I'm not sure. 
> 
> I’m going to leave this one up to you guys :)


End file.
